Public URL recipes

routing.domains maps every supported locale to its canonical public origin. Each locale then owns an unprefixed path on its origin; the internal locale segment still reaches the same generated Next route tree. Domain routing does not require per-domain folders, copied layouts, or another dependency. For prefix routing, see Frontend locales.

Separate production domainsLink to this section

Separate production domains:

locales: defineSysthemaLocales({
  supported: ['en', 'hu'],
  default: 'en',
  routing: {
    domains: { en: 'example.com', hu: 'pelda.hu' },
  },
})
// https://example.com/slug, https://pelda.hu/slug

Locale subdomainsLink to this section

Locale subdomains:

locales: defineSysthemaLocales({
  supported: ['en', 'hu'],
  default: 'en',
  routing: {
    domains: { en: 'en.example.com', hu: 'hu.example.com' },
  },
})
// https://en.example.com/slug, https://hu.example.com/slug

Mixed domains and shared subfoldersLink to this section

Mixed dedicated domains and shared subfolders — point several locales at one host to group them:

locales: defineSysthemaLocales({
  supported: ['en', 'hu', 'fr', 'nl', 'de'],
  default: 'en',
  routing: {
    domains: {
      en: 'example.com', // dedicated → served unprefixed
      hu: 'example.hu', // dedicated → served unprefixed
      fr: 'example.eu', // shared host → served at /fr
      nl: 'example.eu', // shared host → served at /nl
      de: 'example.eu', // shared host → served at /de
    },
  },
})
// example.com/slug, example.hu/slug, example.eu/fr/slug, example.eu/nl/slug, example.eu/de/slug

A host with one locale serves it unprefixed; a host shared by two or more locales path-prefixes each so they keep distinct URLs. Every downstream surface (canonical/alternate URLs, sitemaps, revalidation, Preview) follows this automatically. A shared host cannot serve one of its locales unprefixed — give that locale its own dedicated host instead.

Custom subfoldersLink to this section

Each prefix-routed locale can also override its public URL segment via the advanced form's subfolder (defaults to the locale code) — e.g. ar: { rtl: true, subfolder: 'arabic' } serves that locale at /arabic/slug instead of /ar/slug, in both pure prefix mode and on a locale sharing a host in domain mode; it throws on a dedicated-domain locale, which always serves unprefixed. Internal routing — the generated catch-all's segments, revalidation cache keys, static params — always stays on the locale code; subfolder only changes what the browser sees, and next-intl's middleware rewrites the public /arabic/slug request to the internal /ar/slug route. See Advanced per-locale form for the full validation rules.

Local production buildsLink to this section

Local production-build testing uses the same contract and one Next server:

locales: defineSysthemaLocales({
  supported: ['en', 'hu'],
  default: 'en',
  routing: {
    domains: {
      en: 'http://en.localhost:3000',
      hu: 'http://hu.localhost:3000',
    },
  },
})
// http://en.localhost:3000/slug, http://hu.localhost:3000/slug

Validation and redirectsLink to this section

Host-only production values normalize to HTTPS. Explicit HTTP origins are for loopback development. A domain map must include every supported locale and use one protocol, and contain origins only — no path, credentials, query, or fragment. Hosts may be shared (grouping their locales under path prefixes) or dedicated. A request that lands on the wrong host for its locale redirects to the canonical URL — https://en.example.com/hu/slug → the unprefixed https://hu.example.com/slug on a dedicated host, or the prefixed path on a shared host — preserving its query string. The same rule applies when Preview explicitly selects another locale.

Public path and href helpers describe browser-facing URLs; they are not cache invalidation keys. Next's generated catch-all route and Payload revalidation use the dedicated internal locale path (/<locale><pathname>) for every enabled locale mode, including an unprefixed default locale and domain routing. This prevents two public hosts that both expose /slug from sharing one on-demand revalidation target.

Sitemaps on several hostsLink to this section

For production domain routing, treat every locale host as a sitemap deployment surface. Make each host discover its sitemap from that host's robots.txt, or publish a sitemap index that references the per-host sitemap files if the search tool supports cross-site submission. Verify ownership of every domain or subdomain in the relevant search tooling and submit/discover each host; do not assume submitting only the default locale host covers URLs on the others.

RelatedLink to this section

• Public origin
• Sitemaps